Marvel finally unveiled the first trailer for its super-sized May 2018 release Avengers: Infinity War and it is a doozy! We get to watch Spider-Man take on a floating stargate thing, Doctor Strange and Wong meeting Bruce Banner, Thor meeting the Guardians of the Galaxy, and Thanos wrecking havoc all across the world. Oh, and we see Loki offering up his beloved tesseract to the new big bad guy. (What the heck, Loki? You had come so far!) Still, all I want to do is talk about Captain America’s new beard. No, I’m not talking about Sharon Carter. *Cymbal crash.* I’m talking about the facial hair that changes everything, the follicles that could inspire a nation, and the dark blonde fuzz that says it all: Captain America’s literal new beard.

Take a moment and look at it. Bask in its carefully cropped perfection. Perhaps Steve Rogers has been on the run since Captain America: Civil War, but he has still managed to find a good barber. That’s some great personal pride, there. I’m just going to get this out of the way: Cap looks fine with a beard. Not “fine” as in “merely passing for okay,” but “fiiiiiiine.” The precise angle of the beard’s creeping shadow upon his cheeks only serves to highlight actor Chris Evans‘s impeccable bone structure. That there is a beautiful man, and this beard shows that he knows it.

Aesthetics aside, the beard means something else. Beards are often seen as a rite of passage for men. The ability to grow one is often a sign of virility, or at the very least, maturity. I’m not sure how I feel about beards as a measure of masculinity, but I do think that they symbolize a transition from boyhood to manhood, or from innocence to experience. That’s important with regards to Cap. When we first meet Steve Rogers, he is frozen in ice, a relic of a more moral time. In his backstory we get to know him as a scrawny, courageous, sweet “kid from Brooklyn.” That’s literally how Captain America describes himself. It suggests purity.

The beard signifies that the so-called “kid from Brooklyn” has grown up. He’s taken on the lessons of all his adventures and matured into an older, wiser figure for it. Note that the trailer introduces him stepping out from the darkness with a steely gaze of resolve. Note also that the trailer ends with him leading an army in the field of battle. GIF: Marvel

The beard is great. The beard is beautiful. And the beard is a sign that Captain America has hardened into a new kind of hero — a mature one.